One of Many

Run you clever boy, and remember me…

She doesn't know where she is. She just knows that she's running. It feels like she's lived a thousand lives in a thousand places. She's born… she lives… and she dies. He's always there though, and she's always running to save him… again, and again, and again.

(Sometimes there's a girl there too. The girl looks different every time – a new face, just like how he changes his. The girl is almost always a brunette, except for that one life - on the planet with the twin suns and beautiful red grass, which is torn apart by war – when the girl has red hair.)

No matter how loudly she calls, He hardly ever hears her. It doesn't stop her though – she's always there. Right from the very beginning, from the day He started running. She doesn't know who she is, or where she's going, or where's she's been. But she does know one thing: she was born to save -

And then she wakes up.

Clara shakes herself out of the dream, trying to sit up only to find that she is tangled up in her bed sheets, and sweating profusely in the warm summer night air. But she's not Clara here; she's Claire Oswin – 16 years old with an obsession with baking soufflés, and babysitting the neighbors' children on Friday nights to earn money to pay for a new watch after she accidentally took a bath with her old one.

It took her forever to find a watch shop that had reasonable prices, most of them seem to think that people have money to burn now that the war has been over for a good decade – she can still remember the terror from the air raids and the dropping bombs, even if she was only a toddler at the time - but she finally did.

The old man who owns the watch shop, Fixing Time, is very clever although he has little patience for fools. She stops by after school sometimes and they talk while he fixes broken pocket watches – she tells him about her dream of being a teacher one day and he tells her that he thinks she will be a good teacher and helps her with her homework when she gets lost. He drives a little yellow roadster he calls "Bessie" and Claire always ends up in giggles whenever she thinks about it – maybe it's named after his wife? But he doesn't wear a ring, and Claire never asks.

It's 1953, and England will soon have a new Queen. She's 17 and staying with family up in Muswell Hill, in Haringey because the pipes in their bathroom at home burst and her dad thinks it's best.

Something strange is going on – people are disappearing, and it's scaring her Aunt and Uncle. Everybody is putting on a brave face (stiff upper lip and all) but it doesn't change things, doesn't stop it from happening.

She's putting the rubbish out when she sees them, sees Him. He's with a blonde girl in a pink skirt, and something in her mind whispers that this is not the girl she sees in her dreams. It scares her, because she recognizes him – she knows him. He's the man with many faces, the man she's always running to save.

She drops the rubbish in the bin and scampers back inside as quickly as she can, peering out between the lace curtains at them as they talk their way inside the house across the street. Once they're out of sight, she goes back to cleaning the kitchen surfaces, and is halfway through the dishes when there is a commotion from across the street. The police are taking away another person again.

The Man races off on his little scooter and his blonde companion wanders off down the street and she puts them out of her mind. Her Aunt doesn't have a TV, so they go over to next door's house to watch the Coronation, and she blacks out for a few minutes. When she comes to, she feels terrible – like she's drunk the wrong punch like she did on New Years.

Later, when the street is throwing a party, she sees them again. They look happy and relieved, and the missing people are back. She doesn't know how they did it, but she knows it was them, and she is grateful.

(She's on the moon. Sort of. It's not really a moon, at least that's what He says. But He isn't here right now, He's currently at war with himself… wait, no, He's not. He electrocutes the strange metal thing on his head until it falls off and He is himself again. Then He and his Link are kissing, and their toddler is making a fussy noise of displeasure and they're all trying to find another solution because now the metal army is about to wake up again and kill them all. If they don't blow the planet up first that is.

One problem – they can't activate the bomb… Until the little girl who is with them - She knows her from somewhere… 'Angie' her mind tells her, filling in the blanks 'Angie and Artie Maitland - explains that the tiny man is really an emperor in disguise and that he can activate the bomb. She's not too sure how this is supposed to make sense, but there aren't really very many options right now. The tiny emperor man activates the bomb and suddenly He is panicking, but then they are safe on a starship and so is the magic blue box which takes them on their adventures.

The next thing she knows, the emperor is proposing to her and offering her the universe, which is new. Nobody has ever offered her that before. She's trying to figure out how to politely say 'No.' because she doesn't want to be Empress when the toddler she adores so much is stomping over and kicking up a huge fuss. "Mine," he proclaims, "My Clara" and the bemused emperor politely backs down, which is appreciated.)

But she's not Clara. That was just a dream.

She's 22 and she's never had a proposal. She's been out on a few dates over the years, but it always ends before it begins. Even with the people that she meets now that she's living in Shoreditch, or her fellow students at University. Something always feels wrong, like she's waiting for somebody in particular. Her friends all love to joke about how she's waiting for Mr. Right, but deep down she thinks maybe she's already met him and just not realized.

One day, she thinks, one day she will find him. And if she's praying that day comes soon, well, nobody else has to know, do they.

She's an English teacher now, with a university education, which is pretty special considering it's only 1963 and that she's a woman. Her father is proud of her, he's always said that she is clever, always said that she is good with children and now she's proven him right. She's friends with the History teacher from down the hall – Barbara, which is nice. Most of the teachers at Coal Hill are men who seem to look down on them; Headmaster Parson is one of the worst and sometimes Claire likes to joke that he's possessed. It's funny, because she shares the same birthday as Barbara's aunt Cecelia.

She still has the dreams every now and again – the one she had last night was beautiful.

(It's breath taking – a city shining with light, resting atop a giant floating mass of rock. It's in a continuous orbit around a giant sun, circling in tandem with a number of other rock pieces so that they form rings. There is a pyramid atop one of the other rocks, and when it passes into alignment with the sun it shines so bright. 'The Rings of Akhaten', a voice whispers to her, and she feels both sad and happy at the same time.

There is a market in the city on the rock, and it's so live, so… there aren't enough words to describe it. There are so many… people? there. In her waking hours she would call them impossible or monsters, but her dream self wants to laugh at the diversity. 'So many species…' the voice whispers again, alight with wonder and she smiles.

There is a man – not the man who has so many faces, although something inside her whispers that one day he will – and she accidentally covers him in blue mushy fruit, but he laughs and he smiles, and she feels better when he assures her it's alright. He has the bluest eyes she's ever seen, and she has to suppress a blush.)

Her students are… well, they're teenagers, and no matter the era they will always be the same. Getting their attention is easy; keeping it however, is the hard part. She manages to get them through the last few chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird and then lets them go as soon as they've written down the assignment for the week. Monday's are always the hardest.

She spends an hour or so checking her syllabus, and grading the papers from the pop quiz she gave the first years and then packs up her satchel. She buttons her coat tightly, tucking her scarf in tightly and pulling her hat down snugly around her ears because even though it's the beginning of April, winter still has a tight grip on Britain.

She's walking home when it happens. It's silly really. But he's distracted – not paying attention, and there is a car coming. She doesn't even really know who he is, but she knows the girl with him. Susan Foreman became one of her students a little under two weeks ago, and she knows that the girl's only living family is her Grandfather. It happens in a matter of seconds, she pushes him out of the way, but she isn't quick enough to save herself.

It hurts, and while she's lying there on the cold hard road, with people gathering around her – their voices are so loud and distorted, washing over her like waves of thick syrup – she feels relieved. Like she's done something really important, but she doesn't know what it is. She's tired, so tired, she can feel herself slipping away. It's not fair.

She's only twenty-six. She doesn't want to die. (Run...)

But she was born to save the Doctor. (Run you clever boy...)

And she does. (and remember me…)

She doesn't know where she is. She just knows that she's running.

It feels like she's lived a thousand lives, in a thousand places.

She's born… she lives… and she dies.

And then the cycle begins again.

AN: Written for LizzeXX, in the hopes that maybe this might make her smile. Set in the AU of her Lunar Cycle. There are some pretty obvious references to Evy and J in here if you know what to look for. All credit for them goes to LizzeXX because they belong to her. I just borrowed them for a few hours (read: a few days. It took longer to write than I expected.) I just hope she likes this.

Claire is a variant of Clara. Claire Oswin is born in 1936. She dies on Monday, April 1st 1963 while the First Doctor is investigating the Invasion of The Cold.

1952 The Third Doctor opened a watch-fixing shop in London called Fixing Time. (PROSE: Amorality Tale)

1953 – Idiot's Lantern references.

1963

(1) In late March, the TARDIS materialized in the junkyard at 76 Totter's Lane, owned by I.M. Foreman, in the Shoreditch area of London, disguised incongruously as a police box. Susan Foreman registered at the nearby Coal Hill School against the Doctor's wishes. Britain, meanwhile, was in the grip of an unusual cold wave. (PROSE: Time and Relative)

(2) In November 1963, Coal Hill's headmaster was H. Parson, who at some point came under the mental control of the Imperial Dalek faction attempting to locate the Hand of Omega. [Hence the Possessed joke. I assumed that he had been headmaster for a good while. If not, pretend for the sake of my sanity.]

(3) In November 1963, history teacher Barbara Wright became intrigued by an unusual pupil in the school, Susan Foreman. She and fellow teacher Ian Chesterton become the Doctor's first companions (by accident/kidnapping). However, the Doctor and Susan were there for a good several months before this.

Inspirational Music - I was listening to Karliene Reynolds a lot – I think the songs I played the most were: "King beneath the Mountain", "Smaug's Song", "Dreams of Fire" and "You Win or You Die".